The Savannah City Council voted on Thursday to terminate a design contract to renovate a historic structure that once housed a black-owned pharmacy for at least a century before closing in 2007.

The building at 916 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. was found to be structurally unsound and additional expertise will now be required for the city to move forward with the project, said City Manager Stephanie Cutter. The discovery was made when a bulldozer accidently swiped the building while demolishing an adjacent structure and revealed that the concrete blocks were not properly reinforced, Cutter said.

As a result, city officials and the architect, Wubbena Architects and Designers, agreed the contract should be ended since the additional design work would be outside the contract’s scope.

The total fee approved for the project was $60,200. With the remaining portions of the contract eliminated, there will be a reduction of $21,000.

City spokesman Bret Bell said the $40,000 in plans the city has already paid for will still be able to be used.

Savannah bought the property in 2009 for $371,000 to locate the city’s economic development department there and help rehabilitate the commercial corridor.

The city now plans on sending out a request for proposals with the expanded scope. The additional work could add $500,000 to the cost of the project, which was originally budgeted at about $2 million, Cutter said.

Both aldermen Tony Thomas and Tom Bordeaux expressed concerns about the mounting costs. Bordeaux said that before the city spends more money on the plan, a workshop should be held outlining the costs and historical significance of the building.

When such concerns were raised during the pre-meeting, Mayor Edna Jackson said she wants the pharmacy preserved. A lot of black-owned businesses were lost along the corridor due to urban renewal, Jackson said.

“This was one of the first Savannah businesses that an African-American family built,” Jackson said.

Council grills chief about reserve officer program

The council was generally supportive of a proposal to supplement the Savannah-Chatham police department using unpaid reserve officers during a morning workshop. They did have some concerns about the proposal that came up after more than an hour of questioning Chief Willie Lovett and other proponents of the plan.

Lovett said the plan would increase human resources for the city at a minimal cost. The expense would come from equipping the officers, expected to amount to about $6,800 per individual, Lovett said.

Initially, Lovett expects to employ 30 to 35 reserve officers and eventually increase the number to 50, he said.

Alderman John Hall was concerned after learning the officers would only be used in the city, which would be funding the program.

Cutter said the program would still benefit residents outside city limits because the reserve officers could cover large events downtown instead of having to shift those full-time officers from the unincorporated area of the county. The reserve officers will also have the ability to make arrests outside city limits if they do witness a crime, Lovett said.

Thomas was concerned the reserve officers would take away off-duty security work from full-time officers. One of the benefits for signing up to the reserve force is the ability to work such jobs.

Lovett said officers can only work off-duty jobs 20 hours a week and that there is currently not enough supply to meet demand. He said he would look into the possibility of requiring that full-time officers get priority when it comes to off-duty work.

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That question should have been answered way before spending $411,000 of tax payer money on this piece of property that probably couldn't be sold today for $200k. Now they want to blow more tax dollars on it.Maybe the Mayor can turn it in to a global hopscotch supply house. Savannah will make millions...

I would suggest that the mayor form a non-profit organization whose specific purpose is to fund reconstruction of run down, incorrectly built, mildly historical structures and quit spending my tax dollars on the same. She is confusing personal desires with the public good.

The COS had placed this project to bid with an estimated construction cost of 1.2Mil. Then, during the design phase, it was realized that 50% of the structure would need to be replaced...after the design was finished the estimated value of the construction was at 2.3Mil ...this was prior to the realization that non of the exterior CMU was reinforced..... The pure fact is, the COS is planning to dump a total of 3Mil on this property...and as someone else said, it couldn't fetch much more than 200k now...maybe 500k when its finished....
Development 101:
Rule #1 - Total investment + total improvements = less than what you can sell if for....
Rule #2 - If you plan to use the bldg for X amount of years...then project the estimated value of the bldg during those years....the fact is..you are underwater until that time.....THIS is a RISK..

Basically its a bad plan from the beginning and the COS cant seem to realize it.